Num 14:26 And Yahveh spoke to Moses and to Aaron, and this is what he said,
Num 14:27 “How long will this wicked congregation complain about me? I have heard the complaints of the people of Israel, which they complain about me.
Num 14:28 Say to them, ‘As I live, declares Yahveh, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you:
Num 14:29 your dead bodies will fall in this desert, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have complained about me,
Num 14:30 not one will come into the land where I swore that I would make you stay, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.
Num 14:31 But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they will experience the land that you have rejected.
Num 14:32 But as for you, your dead bodies will fall in this desert.
Num 14:33 And your children will be shepherds in the desert forty years and will suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the desert.
Num 14:34 According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you will bear your violation forty years, and you will know my displeasure.’
Num 14:35 I, Yahveh, have spoken. Surely this I will do to all this wicked congregation who are collected against me: in this desert they will come to a full end, and there they will die.”
Num 14:36 And the men whom Moses sent to scout out the land, who returned and made all the congregation complain about him by bringing up a bad report about the land–
Num 14:37 the men who brought up a bad report of the land– died by plague in the sight of Yahveh.
Num 14:38 Of those men who went to scout out the land, only Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive.

the price of failed leadership

God’s judgment upon the Israelite scouts who gave the negative report was not immediate. He didn’t just strike those ten men down, regroup the Israelites, and have them march into Canaan. No, it took an entire generation before the Israelites would be given another opportunity to do what God wanted them to do. Such is the price of failed leadership.

LORD, give us the wisdom to trust you and do what you want us to do — the first time. Give us the courage to do what you have told us to do, no matter what challenges we face. We realize the consequences of disobedience.